The Key to a Happy Marriage
by The Lillie
Summary: A cross-Gem fusion, even the first of her kind, can be hard to keep together when her components are out of sync. Love takes time, and love takes work. Oneshot set shortly after The Answer.


When Ruby woke up the next morning, she was herself. For some reason, being herself had become more disorienting than being fused with Sapphire. Even though it hadn't really been that long since joining the rebels, and they hadn't stayed fused that entire time, she had gotten more and more accustomed to the form they had together.

Ruby stood and stretched out a pair of short arms, yawned with a small voice, stumbled forward on stubby legs. The little cave they'd taken refuge in for the night was silent and cool, the dark walls glittering with the peek of sunlight rising over the horizon. Ruby exhaled and turned around, watching the light creep across the dirty floor to ever-so-slightly kiss the edge of a night-blue skirt. The owner of the skirt stirred a little, rubbing the top of one bare foot with the toes of the other, clinging tighter to the dozing creature in her arms. A contented noise, like a hum crossed with a yawn crossed with a sigh, floated from her lips as she slept. Her bangs were askew, revealing long eyelashes fluttering at the end of a single peaceful lid.

The smell of smoke. Ruby glanced down and then hurriedly stepped backwards, quietly stamping out the small fire she'd been standing in.

Maybe someday she'd stop feeling so warm and awestruck every time she saw Sapphire. Probably not, though.

Ruby glanced out to the mouth of the cave, where a single thin shadow marred the stretching landscape outside. All four—no, three of them; she and Sapphire had been fused at the time—had arrived together at this place, and Rose Quartz had said that they should all befriend and try spending the night with the animals living there, but for some reason the pearl had declined. She didn't like sleep, she said. She preferred to stand watch, to guard them.

 _Guard us from what?_

 _You never know when the colonists might show back up and attack._

Sapphire probably knew. But she hadn't been relying with as much certainty on her future vision for a while.

Shielding her eyes from the light with her hand, Ruby carefully stepped over a few furry little aliens and into the full warmth of the sunrise. It really was beautiful down here. All the colors alone were breathtaking; brought together and dabbled across the scene in so many different shapes and shades was incredible. She'd never seen anything like it on Homeworld or any other planets she'd been assigned to—then again, maybe she had seen it, and just never had the time or perspective to enjoy it.

Pearl turned and saw her.

"Oh," she said. "You're unfused."

"Sapphire's still asleep," Ruby excused, sheepishly scratching the back of her head. "I-I don't know why I woke up first."

Pearl gave a good-natured _hmph_ , a half-chuckle, returning her gaze to the horizon. "I would guess the same reason I'm out here. Um, is—Rose—still asleep in there, too?"

"Mm-hm." Ruby nodded.

"We'll wait for them to wake up before we get moving to join the others."

"O-okay."

Ruby fidgeted for a moment. The dewy grass tickled at the bare skin of her legs. She plucked up a few blades and dropped them in her lap, bored and restless. When would Sapphire wake up? At this point being unfused was not only disorienting, but dislikeable. Ruby tapped her toes a little and wrapped her arms around herself.

"How much longer do you think they'll be?" she asked.

Pearl shrugged without turning. "It could be hours. Rose doesn't usually sleep very long, but she's started to enjoy it more since meeting more of these...creatures. They sleep too much."

"Any sleep feels like too much when you usually don't sleep at all."

"I suppose that's true."

Ruby glanced back at the cave—at Sapphire. Any sleep at all felt like too much when it meant they had to be separated.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Pearl said.

"Yeah," Ruby sighed. Then she snapped her gaze forward, blushing. "I mean, uh—who were you referring to? Because—"

"Oh, um—"

"I guess both of them," they finished in unison.

This time Pearl gave more of a three-quarters-chuckle.

"Look at us," she mused, almost in awe. "A ruby and a pearl, sharing equal company with the likes of Sapphire and Rose Quartz. Down on this planet, no less, away from everyone else. And you spend most of your time _fused._ "

"Heh. Yeah." Ruby tore up some more grass. "Pretty crazy."

"More like amazing."

There was a dreamy undertone to her words. Ruby watched her for a moment before looking into the cave once more. This time, though, she didn't focus on Sapphire, but on the huge pink-and-white form behind her. Rose Quartz.

"Have you ever...tried...fusing?" Ruby tentatively asked.

Pearl stiffened, startled. "Me? With whom?"

"Well—Rose, I guess."

Pearl's entire face went bird's egg blue.

"W-well of course not!" she stammered, voice pitching a full octave higher than before. "That would be—I mean, that would be unheard of—a pearl fusing at all, but with—with _Rose Quartz—"_

 _This is unheard of!_

 _Unbelievable!_

 _Disgusting!_

Pearl kept going, apparently not noticing Ruby's expression. "She's light years beyond me in nearly every capacity—class, size, intelligence, function—i-it'd be impossible for us to manage to synchronize enough to—and even if we could, I mean, I'm just a common pearl—"

"You're not just common!" Ruby defended, inordinately indignant. "The way you are with those swords, being part of this rebellion—that's incredible!"

Pearl blinked, surprised. Then she smiled shyly, still blushing. "Really? You think so?"

Ruby nodded.

"W-well, that's—thank you." her gaze fell to the ground. "But no. I could never."

"Okay," Ruby conceded, shrinking in on herself.

 _She's light years beyond me…_

 _It'd be impossible…_

 _I'm just a common Ruby…_

Ruby shook her head and tried to return her focus to the scenery. What was she thinking? Why was she worrying? Sure, it sounded an awful lot like Pearl's words were applicable to her and Sapphire as well, but—but they'd already disproved all of that, right? They'd already fused. They'd already stayed fused, stayed stable, for...how long had it been, a few weeks? Maybe more? It didn't matter the class difference or anything. Besides, they loved each other. That was what mattered.

Except...they hadn't actually been together _that_ long...and Sapphire had never really explicitly _said_ she loved her…

One of the little creatures jumped onto Ruby's lap.

"Gyah!" she started, standing up quickly. The animal pranced away and hopped in a little circle around her, joined quickly by a few playmates. Ruby carefully stepped outside of the ring of aliens and looked back at the cave.

"Aren't they precious?" Rose Quartz grinned as she emerged.

"Oh, um—" Precious as in cute or precious as in rare and valuable? Because cute was subjective. And they definitely weren't rare.

"They're not the only species on this planet to live in groups like this," Rose informed Ruby. "All kinds of different creatures in their little societies, working together to support and sustain each other—just like Gems!"

"That's so fascinating," said a whispery new voice.

Ruby gasped. Sapphire glided into view—she'd been entirely hidden by Rose's dress.

"You're awake!" Ruby beamed.

Sapphire smiled back, equally excited. "There you are!"

In half a blink she was at her side, arms around waist. Eager to be back together, Ruby swung Sapphire off the ground and spun her in an enthusiastic circle.

And kept spinning her.

And kept spinning her.

Her smile faded.

Ruby slowed to a stop and set Sapphire back down, confused.

"Why didn't we fuse?" Sapphire asked.

Rose stepped closer, concerned. "Is everything all right?"

Suddenly extremely conscious of every gaze being on her, Ruby stiffened and locked her hands together at her front.

"I suppose—" Sapphire stepped back a little, hands rising to head. Peering into the future. Ruby knotted her fingers together.

Finally, Sapphire straightened and returned to a calm, poised posture. "It's all right. It's only about another day's walk to the next warp pad. We'll reach the rest of the Crystal Gems before sundown."

"Future vision," Rose murmured with a smile.

Ruby almost smirked. That wasn't future vision, that was just logic. She looked to Sapphire, expecting her to say so.

But Sapphire said nothing, just walked over to Ruby and took her hand. Pearl took the lead as they started forward.

"A day sounds like plenty of time to explore a little more," said Rose, striding up to walk beside Pearl. "What do you think? Should we show them the tunnels we passed through the first time we were around here?"

Pearl gasped and turned to talk to Ruby and Sapphire over her shoulder as she walked. "The tunnels are lovely. I'm sure we could take a small detour through them and still make it to the others in time."

"What do you say?" Rose asked, turning back as well.

Ruby immediately looked to Sapphire—but Sapphire seemed too distracted to answer.

"If you want to," Ruby said hesitantly.

Rose smirked a little. "But what do _you_ want to do?"

"Oh. Um." Ruby squeezed Sapphire's hand a little tighter, an unconscious twitch. "Tunnels sound nice, yeah."

"Splendid!" Pearl approved, clapping her hands together. She took a longer, more sprightly step forward, her energy renewed with excitement. Rose laughed.

It made Ruby almost laugh a little, too, watching the two of them react to each other. It was easy to see that Rose and Pearl were both completely smitten—easy for her to see, at least, but the lovers themselves seemed to each think her affection to be one-sided. But they'd get together eventually—she'd shared enough of Sapphire's future vision to see that.

Her laugh was stillborn.

So why couldn't she see how Sapphire felt right now? Why couldn't she see what was keeping them apart?

Ruby glanced over at Sapphire. Her expression was indecipherable.

She squeezed her hand again, this time intentionally. Sapphire squeezed back, but didn't look at her.

"Are you two alright?" Rose asked, pausing and glancing back. Ruby realized that they'd been walking slower than they should've.

"We're fine," they answered in unison—but Sapphire sounded much more sure of herself.

The sun inched higher above the horizon as they walked, letting the pink-and-orange overcast give way to the blues and greens and grays and yellows of the earth. There _definitely_ weren't arrays like this on Homeworld, especially in such a moving, temporary, ever-changing state. Back home, everything was carefully organized and separated, and left to stay still forever. But Earth was so messy and excited and romantic and unpredictable and fleeting and free. It was magnificent. It was easy to see why the Crystal Gems wanted to protect it.

 _Is that it?_ Ruby considered, her marveling smile fading. _Is that why Sapphire's been staying here this whole time? For the Earth? Not for me?_

It definitely made more sense. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around why an aristocrat would abandon the aristocracy, but to protect an entire amazing planet seemed more reasonable than to rescue a ditzy, useless, dime-a-dozen soldier.

Or maybe Sapphire was staying because she didn't actually like her place on Homeworld. Or maybe because she enjoyed the company of Rose and Pearl. Or maybe just because Ruby's stupidity had made it so she just _couldn't_ go home. Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe…

No matter how many different reasons Ruby could come up with, they all boiled down to the same basic conclusion:

 _We couldn't fuse this morning because Sapphire doesn't even like me. And why would she?_

Ruby folded the fingers of her left hand over her gem. Steam rose from her clenched fist, noticed by—and meant for—nobody but herself.

* * *

At around midday, the grass and dirt they walked on turned into bare rock, and they reached the tunnels.

"Here we are!" Pearl announced. "Miles upon miles of crystalline caverns, every surface sparkling with raw gemstones!"

"They've already started growing Gems here?" Ruby gasped.

"On Earth, gems grow naturally, without anyone needing to start it," Rose explained. "They're not sentient, but they're marvelous. The elements in the planet's crust rise out of the ground and cool and crystallize and change and—there they are."

"It's just pure chemistry!" Pearl squealed.

A stone roof rose over them, just high enough for Rose to stand comfortably with the top of her curls brushing the ceiling. Ruby moved in front of Sapphire to guide her down the slope of the ground.

When she took her gaze away from Sapphire to really take in the cave, her jaw immediately dropped.

Indeed, every surface was sparkling, and in every color imaginable. Gemstones, uncut and unpolished, jutted out from the walls in countless patterns—some jagged, some smooth, some lumpy, some round. In some places sunlight trickled through little holes in the ceiling to cast rainbows across the tunnel, and in others the light simply sent the stones to shimmering.

"Isn't it remarkable?" Rose gushed.

Ruby and Sapphire spoke in unison again. "Yep."

As soon as she realized her mistake, Ruby's cheeks flamed and she clammed up. She shouldn't be talking over her. She should apologize—no, she should just shut up and let Sapphire talk on her own—

Sapphire looked away, thinking, watching the walls. Ruby turned her head in the opposite direction, letting tense, awkward silence dominate the space between them.

After a moment, Sapphire gravitated to a spot of wall where the crystal was glassy and dark, almost black but for a redness in the light. "Pearl, can you tell me what this is called?"

Ruby looked up, then glanced from the wall to her palm."It kinda looks like...super dark ruby."

"Oh! That's garnet," Pearl said proudly. "A silicate mineral—neosilicate, to be precise—it can be found in all sorts of colors, but the deep red is the most common—and over here's some corundum—and ooh, is that moonstone?—"

Corundum, moonstone, zircon—Pearl kept babbling names, and Ruby could barely keep up. She started trying to list them on her fingers in an attempt to remember them, mouthing the words as she counted. _Garnet, corundum, moonstone, zircon. Garnet, corundum, moonstone, zircon, garnet..._

"Ruby."

Sapphire's voice, right behind her ear. Ruby jumped into a rapid about-face, startled. "Yeah?"

"May I speak with you?" Sapphire asked smoothly.

"O-of course."

Sapphire tilted her head to look at Pearl and Rose, and Ruby followed her gaze. Pearl was still talking eagerly about the different stones in the cavern. Rose seemed to be listening raptly, but managed to spare a glance of concern for her other two comrades.

"Come." Sapphire took Ruby's hand and floated gently through a little tunnel, taking them to another opening of the cave where they could have a bit more solitude. In the center of the space she stopped and turned to face Ruby, hands primly folded.

"Is something wrong?" Ruby asked timidly.

Sapphire exhaled. "I can only see one future at a time, myself. When something happens to contradict that future, then...I can't see at all."

"Then you're just like the rest of us," said Ruby.

Sapphire gave a short laugh, a single self-deprecating "hah."

"I've been relying on my future vision for so long. Without it, I feel blind." She shook her head, one hand rising to her forehead—almost to brush aside her bangs, but not quite. "My point is—this morning, when I saw us joining the rest of the Crystal Gems, I saw us arriving there _together._ But since we weren't able to fuse, that's been altered. And...I can't figure out why."

Ruby blinked hard, surprised.

"W-what makes you think I know? I was waiting for you to tell me!" she said. "You're Sapphire! You know everything!"

Sapphire lowered her hand. "I—?"

"And I'm just a ruby who doesn't know anything! I don't know why we couldn't fuse, I still don't know why we _could_ fuse in the first place—I don't understand it! I don't understand anything on this planet, and I haven't understood anything that's been going on since we left Homeworld!"

Sapphire almost held up a hand to interject, but Ruby was plowing onward, caught in a streaming rant of thoughts she'd been shoving away for too long.

"And I wish I could figure it out, but I can't!" she cried, voice cracking. "Because I'm just another dumb ruby!"

Sapphire covered her mouth.

"And you, you're just so smart and important and amazing, and I don't know why you would ever want anything to do with me! I'm nothing! I can't do what I'm supposed to do, and even when I do something I'm _not_ supposed to do, I can't even get _that_ right! I mean—" Tears were flowing freely down Ruby's cheeks now. "I guess it's no wonder now why we can't fuse anymore! Because you're so much better than me in _every_ way, and I just—I can't— _aagh!"_

Ruby clenched her fists over her eyes and spun away from Sapphire. Looking at her any more, looking at that beautiful wonderful perfect everything Sapphire was and Ruby wasn't—it would just make her feel worse.

"Ruby—"

"Don't," Ruby coughed out. "You should just—" She squeezed her eyes shut a little tighter, pushing out hot tears that steamed when they hit the ground. "Go with Rose and leave me here."

"Ruby."

Sapphire's hand touched Ruby's shoulder—first a light brushing of her fingertips that sent a shiver down her spine, then a settling of her whole palm that sent a shiver through her entire body.

Slowly Ruby managed to open her eyes and look at her.

"I don't want to leave you," Sapphire said quietly, her voice a little higher than normal. "It was my choice to come down here with you, and—I want to think it was the _right_ choice."

Ruby sniffed and wiped snot from her face with the back of her arm. "And I messed that up, too, didn't I."

Sapphire shook her head. "No, no, you didn't. I don't think that. I don't think you're anything worse than me, either, and I don't—"

To Ruby's shock, now it was Sapphire's voice that cracked.

"I don't want you feeling bad about yourself because of me!" Sapphire's beautiful perfect mouth twisted and wrinkled. "I don't want you to feel like you're less than me, I don't want you to blame yourself for any of this! I just—want you to love yourself as much as I love you!"

A little gasp jumped from Ruby's mouth. Apparently, Sapphire was just as surprised by the confession as she was—but she didn't look like she was going to take it back.

"You—" Ruby swallowed and brushed some of the wetness from one cheek. Her lips pulled into an almost-smile. "You love me?"

Sapphire was crying now, too.

Sapphire was smiling, too.

"I love you," she said.

Ruby's almost-smile became a real one. "I love you, too."

Sapphire pushed back her bangs to wipe away the single tear track, then held her arms out to wrap around Ruby. And Ruby couldn't help it—she hugged her first.

They still didn't fuse, though. But they didn't want to right now. They just held each other tight, hands buried in hair and clutching at clothes, warm on cool on red on blue.

"Is that really how you feel about yourself?" Sapphire asked in a whisper.

"It's what I was made to feel," Ruby replied simply. "I've got one job, and if I can't do it, what good am I? I'm nothin'."

"I don't believe that," Sapphire declared. "Homeworld is wrong."

Ruby tightened her grip a little, cradling Sapphire's shoulder blade in her hand. "That's why we gotta stay with the Crystal Gems and fight."

Yes. They needed to fight. Not just for Earth—for them.

Sapphire sighed. "I can't believe I was so preoccupied with looking forward I didn't even think to look at what was beside me."

"I can't believe I spent all that time stuck on believing that one bad idea instead of just...talking to you first."

"This is going to take a long time, isn't it," Sapphire said softly. "Making this work."

"We've both got a lot of work to do," Ruby replied.

Sapphire loosened a little, resting her head more heavily on Ruby's shoulder. "Do you think...we can stay together for a little longer this time?"

"You know," Ruby said, certainty returning to her voice and her heart, "I think if we want to, we can try."

"Yes." Sapphire pulled back to look at Ruby, and cupped her jawline in one hand. "I want to."

She kissed her, softly, just between her eye and her cheekbone. Ruby turned her head to bring the kiss to her lips.

It wasn't long before a gentle white glow brought them closer together.

* * *

When the voices stopped, Rose nudged her companion. Pearl jumped a little, startled, then steeled herself and stepped around the corner. Ruby and Sapphire were fused again.

"Oh—I'm glad to see you two have made up," Pearl called, smiling. "Are you ready to go—?"

"Garnet," the fusion said, looking up from her hands.

Pearl cocked her head a little, confused, as Rose peered over the cave wall beside her. "Pardon?"

" _I've_ made up," the fusion corrected.

She smiled wide, partially boastful and partially just sincerely happy.

"And my name," she said, "is Garnet."


End file.
